Another Indian bank goes for business process re-engineering (BPR)

Bank of India (BoI) has started a business process re-engineering (BPR) exercise, encompassing centralisation of operations not requiring customer interface, restructuring of the organisation in view of changing business requirements, and putting branches on the core banking solution platform.

Bank of India has completed work on product portfolio review (PPR), and small and medium enterprises (SME) strategy. Now bank is focussing on the last module - BPR. The Boston Consulting Group is assisting Bank of India in this exercise.

BoI, which is seeking to put 125 branches on CBS platform by end-March 2005 and 750 branches (covering 80% of the total business) by end-March 2007, is looking to centralise operations that do not involve interface with customers, like appraisal of retail, and small and medium scale enterprise loan applications, issue of cheque books, despatch of statements, etc at the city, regional and national level. This move is aimed at imparting efficiency to service delivery.

In addition to the 750 branches that will be put on the CBS platform, 300 branches will be enabled for facilitating multi-branch banking. Branches in the rural and semi-urban areas, which are now under automated ledger posting machines will see total branch automation. BoI has a network of 2,600 branches.